Ange Postecoglou believes a group of Celtic players who want to contribute more could take his team to ‘another level’.
With the schedule easing up a little for the time being, with fewer mid-week matches, Postecoglou has been able to name a more consistent and settled starting eleven week-to-week.
The manager is aware there are others in the squad who’d love to feature more and speaking to reporters this weekend, suggested that will be happening soon.
Motivated group ready to push Celtic on
As quoted by The Scottish Daily Mail [18/02 print edition, page 118], the Bhoys boss said: “There are still guys who want to make more of a contribution and haven’t had much of a chance, particularly lately with a game a week.
“(Yuki) Kobayashi, (Tomoki) Iwata, (Sead) Haksabanovic, (James) Forrest… all these guys haven’t been able to contribute as much as they would have liked. We’ve got (Anthony) Ralston back, (Alexandro) Bernabei is available. The games will come thick and fast pretty quickly, and those guys contributing will help us and sort of take us to another level as well.
“We sort of knew we’d have this three or four-week spell where there were no midweek games and were trying to use it well. More than anything, it gives you a chance to work with the players, particularly individually which is hard to do when you’ve got two games a week.”
It’s heartening to hear such a strong group of players are signalling to the manager they are ready for more minutes. It raises standards across the board and helps motivate those who are already in the team.
The schedule won’t be relaxed for the remainder of the season, there are mid-week matches coming up. So there’s no doubt that Postecoglou will be using the full depth of his squad to keep things fresh.
He might even start that process today against Aberdeen.
In other news, Ange’s brilliant comments on record-breaking Celtic support as McCoist’s offer is put to him.
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